


in my bed

by privateering



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Adam Parrish Loves Ronan Lynch, Alternate Universe- No Supernatural, Amy Winehouse - Freeform, Angst, Confusion, Dead Dove: Do Not Eat, Emotional Manipulation, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, No Proofreading We Die Like Men, One Shot, Open to Interpretation, Past Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish, Psychological, Psychological Trauma, School Reunion, Self-Hatred, Ten Years Later, no magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:07:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24044875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/privateering/pseuds/privateering
Summary: The relationship had ended on rocky shores, but Adam doesn’t feel too guilty for missing Ronan so much. Why feel responsible for ending the shit he started?The floor of the restaurant began to sink inwards, the centre of it being in the middle of the circle. Adam sunk in with it, but fear didn’t envelop him.
Relationships: Richard Gansey III & Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch & Adam Parrish, Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	in my bed

**Author's Note:**

> quite proud of this ngl
> 
> its not beta'd or proofread and im p sure there are mistakes in punctuation and tense.
> 
> thank yall and pls leave kudos xoxo
> 
> p.s. ive used some british terms in this, so if confused, pls ask and i will explain.

Adam had not seen Ronan Lynch in a long time. Well, it was a long time to him, at least. It was a long time that was actually only objectively a long time to a person who wanted the long time to be a short, short time.

It was not Adam’s plan or that he wanted to lose contact with the other, but it’s hard to keep in touch with someone who would rather never see you again. And here is where his problem came in; staying in love with a man you hadn’t talked to since your senior year at Aglionby did some things to your mental health. Especially when you’re the one not doing the confronting.

So, when Gansey had unexpectedly texted Adam, informing him of a school reunion at a bar on the edge of Henrietta, Adam’s mind instantly turned to Ronan. He didn’t want to ask Gansey if Ronan would attend since the man had been present for all of the drama, but he didn’t need to, either. Much like anyone who befriended Gansey, a loyalty to him was cemented in Blue and the other raven boys’ souls. His role in their lives was the reason Ronan would go, even if he had to live through bumping into an awkward ex-lover.

And, although Adam would be looking forward to seeing Blue, Gansey and Noah again, Ronan was the only thing he could actually bring himself to think about. It was a bit pathetic that he was still infatuated with a guy who _told_ him that he didn’t like him anymore, but the man had never experienced anything like dating the other. Adam craved to feel the thrill of it again. The adrenaline had been so intense that experiencing it with anyone else, Adam knew, would basically be impossible.

So, here he was, standing outside of a bar called ‘The Lounge’. Its name was minimalistic, simple and expensive. For some reason, those first two words heavily appealed to the first class, but Adam shouldn’t have been expecting anything else from a place Gansey chose. He attempted to stop his hands from shaking with anxiety, but the forthcoming events were no joke. The fists were shoved into his black trousers pockets.

Mimicking what might’ve been a suave walk, Adam strolled through the front entrance; no way in hell was he about to let Ronan see him so worked up. Instantaneously, a waiter came up to him, asking if he had booked, but Adam quickly and kindly waved the man away. From the far side of the main area, Gansey was animatedly flailing his arms as a way to get the other man’s attention. He only focused his gaze on the previous leader of their friend group. Adam did not want to see Ronan’s face yet, in case the walk to the table would be long enough for him to start properly freaking out.

A bear hug enveloped him when he arrived at the table and he took a cautious look around to see who else was there. It struck Adam as wrong that the booth was empty and looked back up to Gansey to voice his concerns.

Instead, the space in front of him was also empty. He looked around, trying to stay calm, but it soon became frantic and he was sweating and it was getting harder to breathe and he wondered if his friends are cruel enough to play a prank on him in public.

Adam lowered himself into a crouch, head between knees to block the sensory overload currently happening in his brain. None of the panic disappeared, but it calmed in the slightest of ways and Adam raised his head a bit.

In the corner of his eye, there was a mass of darkness under the table that was not dark enough to contain a nothingness. There were suggestions of textures and shapes which made his eyes squint, but the squinting of the eyes didn’t reveal anything solid about whatever was in the black. All he knew was that that it was bigger than small.

Starting to shuffle closer to whatever the thing was, Adam pushed down instincts to start gagging and crying. The fear and undeniable humanity of the being was more enticing to Adam than he’d rather admit, but he was not in a mind-set to care about what others were thinking of him right now.

Curiously, his hand reached out to roughly, but not unkindly, rest on the thing. Instantly, the feeling of fur cushioned all of the fingers and a warmth which suggested the humanity Adam thought was lacking raced up through his limb. Dumbly, his hand fists into the fur and in the next two seconds, his back is smashed against the floor.

A bear towered over him whilst Adam’s fist was still buried in its coat. It growled savagely but the man was too entranced to do anything but gaze, shocked. It leaned forward so its snout was almost touching Adam’s nose and growled again. Whether or not it was nervousness, he simply grinned back, let out a shaky exhale and tentatively spread his legs.

The animal’s eyes stayed trained on Adam’s own, ignoring the lower limbs presented to it. Before Parrish could close them in a burning shame, cheeks flaming, the bear sniffed harshly and lunged.

Teeth like stalactites sunk into the pale neck with little to no reserve. Adam’s eyes rolled back with white hot pleasure, back arching inhumanely, before slumping back down like a doll. The beastly fangs tugged back rapidly, bringing the muscles and blood vessels of Adam’s throat out with them.

A copper taste flooded the man’s mouth and he gagged wretchedly. It didn’t stop him from staring at the bear’s beautifully stained mouth. He closed his eyes in a way that seemed sleepy and his body released its tension, sinking into sleep.

-

When Adam opened his eyes the bear was gone, but its red-dyed teeth lay in a perfect circle right in front of him. He touched his neck, finding it unharmed, and groggily crawled until both hands were planted within the tooth circle.

The floor of the restaurant began to sink inwards, the centre of it being in the middle of the circle. Adam sunk in with it, but fear didn’t envelop him. Everything previously negative no longer existed, but nothing explicitly positive was present either. A numbing high circulated through his veins and it felt like the pressure in his head was increasing.

On the verge of what felt like Adam’s head exploding, the feeling of bed sheets pressed into his back. The warm presence of another person was made known above him and a shiver worked its way up his spine. The familiarity of the situation, the fact that this was the future of his past, seized the boy’s chest and his lungs filled with tears. Back then, there was only confusion. But this moment in time was also back then. But this was a different version of back then; he’d experienced it before it’d happened.

The touches he felt were the exact same as he remembered, but the unfamiliarity of them existed within moments of recognition. Adam’s eyes stayed screwed shut. He didn’t want to see who was in front of him. He knew who it was, but not coming face to face with him kept the innocence of his feelings for the other pure. He wouldn’t even acknowledge the man’s name if it meant the thought of him would remain untainted.

And even though life-shattering understanding clawed at the edge of his consciousness, the fragment of his original back then self was shaking with scared curiosity. _Whose hands were they? I want to know. I want to know. Why me? Why choose me to do this?_

As the future-memory progressed, every second becoming more unbearable, the tears in Adam’s lungs travelled up his throat, into his tear ducts. Some type of defeat sunk through his skin and the effort to keep his eyelids down waned. Thoughts of accepting what he already knew in the depths of his hundreds of alternate lives ran through the fibres of his mind. And his eyes opened.

A sob ripped through his throat at the site of the familiarly sharp eyes and the earth shrunk in on itself.

-

The next thing Adam knew; a mangled body was lying on the road in front of him.

The rhythmic flashing of red and blue painted the entire area, but Adam was removed from both himself and the situation. Once again, the part of him that was truly back then felt opposite. His hands stared back at him with shock, as if they were just the weapon, as if they weren’t at fault. And although Adam was just as shocked, anger flashed once, then twice. He shoved his hands into the crevices of the action of crossing his arms.

Tears clouded his vision viciously, making him blind to the medics hovering around the body and the lorry driver loudly complaining to a police officer further down the road.

Adam felt overwhelmed with regret at that moment in time, guts heavy with apprehension. But thinking of a different world where the not-alive person was still alive did not seem bearable or reasonable, even to the majority of Adam’s mind; the future-past Adam.

The other Adam was dread and grief. It was an uneven balance of blame and pity. It was what happened when you were the reason someone was not alive. And the attacking feelings made his body curl even more until he was as much of a circle as a person could become. Yet, he did not like thinking of himself as a person just then. It did not feel fair to say he was the same as people who were decent, truthful.

Even the man lying on the road was more human than him, and even though he was told otherwise, Adam suspected that the man’s spirit was fervently hating him for this.

The back then Adam festered until that was all that was left. The future-past Adam had gone, for now at least, and the one true emotion left in his heart was the emotion of missing someone who you wouldn’t see again. So, he focused his watery eyes on the dead body in the middle of the road, and traced the now blurry edges of a sharp life.

-

The room is white, shining with fluorescence. Plastic chairs and tables are dotted around the area with little thought, a light tone of multiple conversations giving the room a feeling of less gravity than there should be.

Adam’s eyes search the room for whoever has come to check up on him, his dry hands itching the thigh of the uncomfortably grey joggers.

A slightly tanned hand waves at him from the back of the room, and Adam moves automatically.

He comes to stand in front of a table with 4 chairs, 3 of them occupied. Gansey, looking as familiar as shadows, Blue, trying to be her bright and hard self, and Noah, seeming not entirely there. They don’t fit with the blandness of the space, their existence making the brightest white look brown. But the group doesn’t look complete.

There are a few awkward moments of silence before the greetings are exchanged. Then, Adam opens his mouth.

“Where’s- “

The word materialises before anything of solidity comes into his brain, and before the sentence is finished, future-past Adam returns.

Past life pieces itself back together and all he can do is awkwardly smile and stop his eyes from tearing up.

He sits down on the chair by Noah and participates in idle talk.

He wishes that the missing presence didn’t feel so much like it was missing.


End file.
